ABSTRACT
Animals appear constantly in South African print media. Not only are syndicated international articles on animal ethology or animal behaviour published, but local and national narratives, which are the subject of this essay, are also featured. national narratives tend to relate to South Africa’s position in connection with CiteS (Convention for international trade in endangered Species), the ignominious, ineffective legislation of canned hunting, the culling of elephants, and the recent inception of elephant training for tourist safaris. Narratives local to Cape town tend to focus on the horrors of illegal dog-fighting, pit-bull terriers turning savage, or the ill-treatment of animals in the townships, as well as on baboons making apparently military-style forays into human habitation. Animals are differentiated into the category of the “wild,” who have to be managed in reserves and along the borders of human habitation, and that of the domestic or farm animals, whose treatment is implicitly and sometimes explicitly racialised in relation to their owners.
